Almost 30 years since Bobby Gillespie and Jim Beattie began rehearsing in a Glasgow scout hall, there's still no such thing as a typical Primal Scream album. As if determined to explore every single kind of music that they love before calling it a day, they swerve from style to style, producing records that are sometimes brilliant and sometimes banal but never the same as what came before.
Gillespie is the band's sole consistent member, although Andrew Innes (1987) and Martin Duffy (1989) are hardly fly-by-nights. Just as important are the dozens of collaborators who have joined them on the winding path. It's a rare band that can claim to have worked with Robert Plant, The Chemical Brothers, George Clinton and Lovefoxxx. Even now, following the tour and reissue of 1991 masterpiece Screamadelica, their most compelling quality is their willingness to take the plunge and risk failure. Sometimes they use their influences as stepping stones and sometimes they wear them like chains around their ankles, but they are nothing if not sincerely passionate: a band of fans. Dorian Lynskey
Essential
Screamadelica
Creation, 1991
In thrall to the ecstasy-driven club culture of the time, Primal Scream deconstructed themselves, welcomed in outside talent (from Jah Wobble to the invaluable Andrew Weatherall) and crafted a '90s benchmark as generous as it was innovative. Download: Higher Than The Sun
XTRMNTR
Creation, 2000
You could call this bug-eyed, psychedelic protest record Screamadelica in negative: similarly daring and well-populated (Kevin Shields, Bernard Sumner, David Holmes, The Chemical Brothers) but dense and tense rather than spacious and dreamy.
Download: Shoot Speed/Kill Light
Vanishing Point
Creation, 1997 Inspired by dub, road movies, and seemingly recorded in a bunker in a climate of stoned paranoia, their first album with Mani is appropriately bass-heavy, with Gillespie a spectral presence. Adrian Sherwood's dub remix, Echo Dek, is equally strong.
Download: Kowalski
Recommended
Give Out But Don't Give Up
Creation, 1994
Widely regarded as a disappointing retreat into Stones-aping rock, even by the band themselves, Screamadelica's follow-up still provides gonzo thrills (Jailbird), wasted balladry (Sad And Blue) and spooky sludge-funk (the title song).
Download: Rocks
Evil Heat
Sony, 2002
A solidly entertaining, Kraftwerk/Stooges-referencing album, but only sporadically a match for XTRMNTR's righteous intensity, and the pointless cover of Some Velvet Morning, featuring an anodyne Kate Moss, is a worrying symptom of shaky judgement.
Download: Deep Hit Of Morning Sun
Primal Scream
Creation, 1989
Their very first reinvention, as MC5-loving garage rockers. The posturing can be daft but the ballads shine - I'm Losing More Than I'll Ever Have was remixed into Loaded, the springboard for Screamadelica.
Download: I'm Losing More Than I'll Ever Have
For the connoisseur
Sonic Flower Groove
Elevation, 1987
Before they learned to rave, or even rock convincingly, Primal Scream epitomised the fey jingle-jangle of mid-'80s Byrds-obsessed indie. Some likeable lightweight tunes but completely eclipsed by what came next.
Download: Love You
Riot City Blues
Columbia, 2006
Tongue-in-cheek pastiche or creative exhaustion? Either way, with a return to boozy rock'n'roll, it makes Give Out... sound like Kid A. Though there are still flashes of inspiration, overall it's a guilty pleasure at best.
Download: When The Bomb Drops
10:30 AM | 22/12/2011
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